Embassies

EMBASSIES

To be posted as ambassador to London is considered to be a top job, the reward after many years of service for a career diplomat. For countries that offer ambassadorial roles as favours, political or otherwise, three years in London is likewise a coveted position.  New ambassadors are accredited to The Court of St James. St James’s Palace technically remains the senior palace of the British monarchy, although the sovereign has not lived there since King William the Fourth. Nevertheless, The Marshal of the Diplomatic Corp is permanently based at St James’s Palace and it from where all ambassadors and high commissioners are received at court.

There are one hundred and seventy-two foreign missions in London, mostly located in St James’s, Mayfair, Belgravia, South Kensington, Knightsbridge, Holland Park and Kensington Palace Gardens and its surroundings. One hundred and twenty-eight of these are embassies and there are forty-six high commissions from the Commonwealth countries and many missions have consular sections in separate locations to the chancery sections of their embassies. It means that in some streets and squares in the above areas, many of the buildings have large flags from the four compass points of the globe, waving from poles above the grand entrances.

The Diplomatic Protection corps seldom have a dull moment, as embassies are frequently the target of demonstrations. The Israeli Embassy, in particular, is well accustomed to such occurrences. The French Embassy saw protests by British Muslims after the banning of headscarves in French schools in 2004. The Royal Danish Embassy was targeted in 2006 after a Danish cartoonist produced material deemed offensive by some British Muslims. There has been a continuous peaceful protest outside the Chinese Embassy for many years by practitioners of  the ‘Falun Gong’ spiritual movement.

It is usually rare for those inside the embassies to take much notice of such protests on an outward level, but that was not the case at the Libyan Embassy in 1984, when Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed in St James’s Square whilest on duty during a protest. The exact series of events has never fully been explained, however, it is allegedly thought machine gun fire was directed at her from the second floor of Libyan Embassy. Her death resulted in the longest police siege in London’s history, lasting nine days, resulting in a souring of diplomatic relations between the two countries that lasted for many years afterwards.

In 1980 Iranian Arab Separatists took over the Iranian Embassy, at its premises overlooking Hyde Park. Inside were twenty-six hostages including police constable Trevor Lock, who later received the George Cross for his bravery. On the sixth day of the siege the kidnappers killed a hostage and threw his body outside. Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister at the time, decided it was time for action and the SAS, (Special Air Service) stormed the building. In ground-breaking manner for the day, the whole episode was played out live, with a short time delay, in front of the media. To disguise the noise of the SAS approach, aircraft approaching Heathrow Airport were diverted to fly at low height directly over the embassy. As an additional precaution, British Gas were instructed to start noisy drilling nearby. Five of the six militants were killed during the release of the hostages. Suggestions that the final captor survived after one of the hostages protected him, whilst suffering from a dose of Stockholm Syndrome, was later denied.

Canada House, which faces onto Trafalgar Square, is Canada’s oldest diplomatic posting, dating to 1880. Greek revival in style, it was built by Sir Robert Smirke, the architect of The British Museum. Canada House looks across to South Africa House, where Nelson Mandela spoke to the crowds from a balcony, whilst he was president of the country in 1996. A little further to the east is Zimbabwe House. Stunning architecturally, the exterior of Zimbabwe House features Epstein sculptures, from his first major commission in London. President Mugabe was reported a few years ago to have allegedly handed over the deeds of his country's High Commission in London to Colonel Gaddafi in a last ditch effort to keep the flow of Libyan oil heading southwards to Zimbabwe.

The Czech Embassy, near to Notting Hill Gate, is seen by the local residents as being one of the ugliest buildings in the neighbourhood. An effort to counter this was made in 1999 when three sculptural pieces were mounted on the side of the building by the Czech artist David Cerny, who first came onto the international scene during The Velvet Revolution. In contrast, for an example of award winning late twentieth century design, look to the Royal Danish Embassy in Sloane Street. The building fits in perfectly against the backdrop of some of London’s most expensive and upmarket boutiques and fashion stores.

At thirty-one Portland Place is located the aforementioned Chinese Embassy.  Unexpectedly to many, it was pulled down in 1980, giving the protected buildings committee a shock, but it was rebuilt with an exterior almost identical to the original 1785 Adam brothers’ building. Sometimes the elegant facades of foreign embassies have been left to rot, the French Embassy on Knightsbridge was for many years the scruffiest looking building in the neighbourhood, with the exterior paint so weathered there were scarcely any peelings left to fall off. The largest embassy in London is the American Embassy, (see the previous Grosvenor Square blog in Tom’s Guide for full details.)

It is often the case that on entering an embassy one feels almost arrived in the represented country itself. Even in the twenty-first century, when paying for a travel visa in the London embassy of one large African country, the money handed across is dropped into a cavernous wooden drawer with notes and coins loosely floating around and the receipt is hand written on a piece of lined paper torn from a notebook. At one Southeast Asian mission, a sweeper in local attire seemingly pushes dust from one side of the hall to another,  as tourists stand in the middle, queuing for visas.

In 1907, the idea to build The Titanic was conjured up over a dinner at the Spanish Embassy. A great deal of what is said and done behind the four walls of London’s foreign embassies is unknown, in fact often deliberately secretive. The world of espionage has long overlapped with the more mundane aspects of diplomatic life and it would be an injustice to such an occluded environment to attempt to tackle the subject in this short text.

Diplomatic immunity is essentially legal immunity from the host country’s laws, meaning that diplomats are not susceptible to lawsuits or prosecution, although they can be expelled. It is argued by some that this leaves the privilege open to abuse. It was reported by The Independent On Sunday newspaper in 2006, that between 1999 and 2004, one hundred and twenty-two serious offences were committed by those protected by diplomatic immunity in the United Kingdom. These figures were released by the then foreign secretary Margaret Beckett. It is alleged that this included murder by a Columbian diplomat and rape and child abuse by a member of the Moroccan Embassy staff. Elsewhere, person or persons protected by diplomatic immunity from the Dominican Republic were allegedly accused of fraud and money laundering, embassy staff from France accused of assault and from Germany of assisting illegal immigration. Many embassies consider London’s traffic controlling Congestion Charge to be nothing more than a tax and the American Embassy alone allegedly owes nearly four million pounds in Congestion Charge fees and other traffic fines. Zimbabwe personnel top the league of driving without a license.

Where to view Embassies  and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Embassies’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Grosvenor Square

GROSVENOR SQUARE

Grosvenor Square is the largest of the three squares in the area of central London commonly known as Mayfair. Mayfair is so named because fairs were held here during the month of May, before the district was developed. Grosvenor Square has remained a fashionable place to live since it was laid out, between 1721 and 1725 by Sir Richard Grosvenor. The square covers the site of Oliver’s Mount, an earthwork thrown up by the English subjects in 1643 when Charles I was approaching London after the Battle Of Edge Hill.

The original buildings of the square have almost entirely been rebuilt over the centuries, one of the better known redevelopments being the American Embassy, built between 1958 and 1960 and still the largest embassy building in Europe. The Americans have had a presence in Grosvenor Square and its surrounding streets since its independence. At number nine Grosvenor Square is where John Adams, the second US president lived, when he was ambassador to London in 1785. In fact, the area is fondly known to many as, ‘Little America.’ Grosvenor Square was where anti Vietnam War protests by many thousands of students and workers took place in 1968, in front of the American Embassy.

The American Embassy is said to be the only American Embassy in the world where the Americans do not own the land beneath the four walls of the embassy. When the U.S.A. were first planning to expand into this building, the British Government placed great pressure on The Grosvenor Estate to sell the west side of Grosvenor Square to the Americans. There were mutterings of compulsory purchase. The Duke Of Westminster, head of the Grosvenor family, who was a good friend of the American ambassador of the day, offered to sell the freehold if the Americans returned to the Grosvenor family twelve thousand acres in East Florida which had been granted to his ancestor, the first Earl, in 1769. The land had been forfeited at the War Of Independence. The land in question today includes the site of Cape Canaveral. The Americans chose to back off and a compromise was reached whereby they pay rent one peppercorn a year to The Grosvenor Estate. It is believed that this was paid in full, some years ago, with the presentation of three solid gold peppercorns, covering the period up until the end of the nine hundred and ninety-nine year lease.

On top of the embassy, beneath the American flag, can be seen the bald eagle, its wingspan is longer than a London bus, it is made from aluminium and any American will tell you its head is pointed in the wrong direction. Today, anti terrorist devices are positioned around the building and there are many concerns about its exposed position. For this reason there are advanced plans to move the entire embassy to a five acre site in Nine Elms, Vauxhall, south London, where tightened security will be easier to achieve. The Grosvenor Square site was bought in late 2009 by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, although the Americans are unlikely to fully move out before 2017, at the earliest.

Positioned outside the embassy is a statue of Dwight D Eisenhower, the supreme allied commander during The Second World War. This is the only statue of him in London and was unveiled by Baroness Thatcher in 1989. It was presented by the people of Kansas City. Eisenhower is depicted his hands on his waist, looking across towards his old headquarters of strategies, over at number twenty, on the other side of the square.

The American Embassy was previously located in what is now part of the Canadian High Commission, at number one, on the opposite side of the square to its present location. London is Canada’s oldest foreign mission and the High Commissioner is based here at Macdonald House, this fine building on Grosvenor Square. The Indonesians also have their London diplomatic mission in Grosvenor Square, at number thirty-eight.

The large garden within Grosvenor Square, covering six acres, was originally a key garden, solely for the use of its residents, but is now open to all. Memorials are positioned to the four compass points of the garden, on the north side stands a fine statue of Franklin D Roosevelt. The Roosevelt Memorial was put up with donations of five shillings by most Londoners. The memorial shows the figure of Roosevelt clutching his stick hidden under his cloak, his other hand is on his lapel.

Opposite Roosevelt is the memorial to the Royal Air Force American Eagle Squadron by Dame Elizabeth Frink. The squadron was made up of mostly American citizens who had volunteered to join the Royal Air Force. Also, within the garden of Grosvenor Square stands a smaller memorial garden dedicated to those who lost their lives on September the eleventh 2001.

Grosvenor Square

Mayfair

London W1

Nearest London Underground (tube)

Bond Street and Marble Arch

Where to view Grosvenor Square  and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Grosvenor Square’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.

Harrods

HARRODS

Harrods is one of the largest departments stores in the world and also one of the oldest. The original shop was situated in Eastcheap, in The City Of London, which was opened by a tea merchant, Charles Henry Harrod, in 1834. He moved the store in 1849, to a single room, in what was then the village of Knightsbridge, partly to capitalise on the forthcoming ‘Great Exhibition’ due to be held in the nearby Hyde Park in 1851.

The store flourished and grew until it was destroyed by fire in 1883. Extraordinarily, despite being raised to the ground, all orders were honoured within three working days. In retrospect, the fire was seen as a blessing in disguise, with a vast new building, covering four and a half acres, finally completed by 1905 and still standing to this very day. Built in the ‘High Victorian’ style, with visible Art Nouveau influences, seen from the elegant shop windows to the stylized ‘H’s for Harrods, positioned at the bases of the many pilasters.

The exterior of the store is illuminated at night by over 15,000 light bulbs and the national flags of countries from across the four compass points of the world wave on the sides of the building and from high up on the roof. Inside, nine hundred customer attendants work in three hundred departments, serving, at peak periods, up to a staggering three hundred thousand customers a day. It is said to be the only department store in the world to have an annual turnover of in excess of one billion pounds sterling.

The very first escalator in the United kingdom was installed in Harrods in 1898 and the shoppers were so afraid of its new technology, that a man with one leg was employed to travel up and down the escalator all day, simply to reassure the nervous customers. At the height of his popularity, Oscar Wilde was a regular customer and Harrods has served everybody from the modest middle classes, to the last Tsar of Russia and the British Royal Family. However, the four vast Royal Warrants displayed above the store’s entrance have all been removed, one after the death of The Queen Mother, the remaining three allegedly connected with the well documented events surrounding the death of The Princess of Wales in 1997.

Be careful what you wear into the store, a story once circulated about a girl who bought a pair of designer ripped jeans in Harrods, she later wore them back into the store and was refused entry by doormen, for being dressed too scruffily. If you do get past the entrance staff, the Egyptian Hall awaits and do visit the splendid food hall. After tiring of shopping, there are restaurants on every floor, said to number twenty-eight in total, including a highly rated oyster bar.

If you are more accustomed to shopping in a ‘pound store’, then the cost of two and half kilos of beluga caviar may came as a shock. It is no surprise then, that the store is said to take up to fifteen million pounds a day. Indeed, the Harrods boss was taking dividends of seven hundred thousand pounds a week at the height of the boom in 2007. The owner is the well known Mohammed Al Fayed, together with his publicity shy brother, who together purchased the store in 1985 for 615 million pounds. The purchase made for much controversy, as the rival bidder Tiny Rowland insisted Al Fayed had lied and cheated his way to winning the battle for the store. Tiny Rowland fought Al Fayed more or less up to his death in 1998, even accusing the Egyptian of stealing items from his Harrods safe deposit box.

Dubbed the ‘Phoney Pharaoh’ by his critics, the more he has tried to join the British establishment, the more Al Fayed has apparently been cold-shouldered. His relationship with the Harrods staff is said to be equally at odds, newspapers reported that he regularly addresses the five thousand employees over the in-store public address system and allegedly, even telling staff which way to vote in an election. Allegedly, secret recording equipment was hidden inside fire extinguishers, not so much to observe shoplifters, but in order to keep an eye on his own floor staff.

It cannot be denied that over his twenty-five years of ownership, Mohammed Al Fayed has shown dedication to the world famous store. Sometimes he has even been known to take on a hands-on role, sometimes serving customers fish in the food hall, or sweating beneath heavy boxes in the storage rooms. Al Fayed rarely misses a trick, the Harrods bank has been selling gold bars since late 2009, cashing in on the demand for gold with its surging prices.

During its long history it hasn’t always been rosy, as besides the aforementioned fire, terrorists attacked the store with a car bomb in 1983 and six people were murdered. Also, anti fur trade demonstrators,  a familiar thorn in the side of the retail business as a whole, which is not always known for its ethics, have regular protests outside the store, with verbal clashes allegedly occasionally spilling over to violence.  Finally, inside the store are two memorials dedicated to the memory of the lives of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed, son of Mohammed, a reminder to a very painful and dramatic series of events for the Harrods owner.
Postscript: On May 8th 2010 the British media reported that Mohamed-al-Fayed had sold Harrods to 'Quatar Holding' which is owned by the Qatari royal family, for £1.5 billion. Mohamed-al-Fayed will continue as honorary chairman. Qatar Holding will become only the fifth owner of Harrods in its long history.

Harrods

87-135 Brompton Road

Knightsbridge SW3 1RT

Nearest London Underground Station (tube):  Knightsbridge

Where to view Harrods  and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Harrods’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.